1. Field of the Invention
The present application relates to neighbor cell search in a wideband cellular network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), also referred to as Multiuser-OFDM, is a modulation and multiple access method for 4th generation wireless networks. OFDMA is an extension of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), for wireless broadband access systems.
OFDMA allows multiple users to transmit simultaneously on the different subcarriers per OFDM symbol. Since the probability that all users experience a deep fade in a particular subcarrier is very low, it can be assured that subcarriers are assigned to the users who see good channel gains on them.
E-UTRA (Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access) is 3GPP radio-access technology. The objective of E-UTRA is to develop a framework for the evolution of the 3GPP radio-access technology towards a high-data-rate, low-latency and packet-optimized radio-access technology.
In previous generation wireless systems, a synchronization channel (SCH) was needed for cell search that consisted of two channels, the primary (PSC) and secondary synchronization channels. The SCH is a logical channel used by mobile stations to achieve time synchronization with the network.